Anything for You
by khaoticmindscorrupting
Summary: With no hope and a broken heart, Damon thinks he is doomed to a life of misery.  But can a new arrival in Mystic Falls save him from himself and show him the man he could become?  How far will he go to do anything for her? Romance/Drama DamonxOC
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: So I've had this story in my head for a few weeks, and I've just been putting it off, telling myself I don't have enough time to do it justice. Finally, tonight it just had to come out, I couldn't stop it. Sorry if there is any little mistakes, but please feel free to review and tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly.

P.S. I don't own this story or the characters (I wish), except for Charlotte. Enjoy!

"I don't deserve you, but my brother does."

Those words caused a chasm in his chest so large he thought it would never close. He remembered the agony he felt when he thought Katherine was gone, and again when he found out that she only loved his perfect brother, but this was incomparable. Had he been able to, he might have died from the heartache.

Damon wandered the woods for a while after that encounter with Elena. How could he return to face his brother, especially when Stefan's face reminded him of all the reasons Elena couldn't love him. He wished he could just leave, to let Stefan and Elena remain in their sickening happiness while he wallowed in his own misery, but as long as the Originals were after Elena, he had to protect her.

Damn her! Katherine he could love because she was evil like himself, but his love easily turned to hate when she turned her viciousness on him, but Elena, she was kind and gentle and loyal and good, everything Damon was not. He loved her for all the things he could never be.

Damon began to run-where he was going, he did not know. He just knew he had to get away from this God-forsaken town, and his saint of a brother, and especially _her _and the way her eyes did not shine with love for him, but with sadness over his lonely and hopeless plight. He ran, away from everything.

What Damon did not know was that someone else was also running towards him, someone who would change him- forever.

A few days later, Damon went to Elena's house to check up on her and make sure that no other mythical being had attempted to do her in. He was surprised to find the Gilbert household in a state of excitement. Damon grabbed Jeremy by the arm as he was making his way into the house with a large lamp and asked, "Jeremy, hey, what's going on?" Jeremy, looking extremely tired, responded, "A cousin of ours is coming to live with us, and Jenna is making us completely redo the guest room for her."

"Well why is she coming to live with you?" Damon asked exasperatedly. Jeremy set down the large lamp and sighed. "We are the only family she has. Mom and Jenna's brother is a general in the military and he is getting deployed to Afghanistan. Normally, Charlotte would have stayed with her mother when he was deployed, but she died last month of cancer. Jenna offered to have her come stay with us for the next few months."

Ugh, Damon could already foresee the problems that would come from this new living arrangement. He pinched the bridge of his nose and asked, "Did anyone think that having a teenage girl living in a house that is the epicenter of vampiric activity a slight problem?" A look spread across Jeremy's face as though that was the first time he thought of it. From the look of Elena, who had been bustling back and forth with bedding and towels, she had not thought of the danger of having a young girl live here. Damon felt a twinge of pain right where is heart was, but tried to ignore it.

Must he think of everything? "Okay. Here's what I'm going to do, I—" At that moment, Stefan came up the walk and joined Damon and Jeremy on the front porch. "Hey, I haven't seen you in a couple of days," Stefan said pointedly toward Damon. Damon, with his usual sarcastic smile, sneered, "Well I can't be there day and night to take care of you, baby brother, can I?" With that, he turned back to Jeremy and continued, "As I was saying, I'll compel Jenna to get rid of this girl." Stefan naturally had to interject and said, "No, you can't do that. Elena wants her cousin to live here, she says that it would be nice to have someone normal around here." Damon sighed in exasperation, "That's all fine and dandy, but do you think it's a good idea to have an uninformed party living in a house that is frequented by vampires. Especially now, with our little problem with the Originals?"

Stefan thought for an instant, and answered, "No, she will be fine, we just have to be a little more careful, that's all. Elena wants her to stay and that's all that matters." Damon thought that Stefan's complete acquiescence to all of Elena's desires caused most of their problems. Damon was about to argue further when the subject of the argument pulled up in front of the house. Jenna quickly opened the driver's door and rushed to get the bags in the trunks, while the girl slowly got out of the passenger side of the car.

He didn't know why, but Damon had been suspecting a young girl, a young teen perhaps, but this girl was anything but. The girl appeared to be seventeen or eighteen, though she was on the shorter side. She was slim, but with a rounded hardness, which gave the impression that she was not as soft as she appeared. Her shoulder length hair was such a dark brow, it almost appeared black with red and gold tints weaved throughout the strands. He could see the family resemblance; she was quietly pretty like Jenna, with Jeremy's full heart-shaped lips. Her creamy white skin was almost as light as a vampire's, but her eyes, her eyes were astonishing. They were almond shaped and very exotic, slanting up in the corners, as to make her appear mysterious and brooding. Her eyes were caramel colored, clear and bottomless; golden pools that shone as if the sun was reflecting off their surfaces.

She stepped out of the car and slowly scanned the surroundings, her eyes falling at last on Damon. He stared back, unable to break out of her intense gaze. And in an instant, she looked away, moving to retrieve her things while Damon tried to fill his lungs with air.

She slowly approached the porch, clutching her suitcase. Jeremy bounded down the steps to greet her. "Charlotte!" He pulled her into a big bear hug, which she seemed uncomfortable with. She awkwardly smiled and quietly said, "Hey Jer. It seems like I haven't seen you in ages." Before Jeremy could respond, a squeal could be heard from the front door as Elena spotted her cousin. She ran down the steps of the porch and reached Charlotte in three steps. Charlotte seemed genuinely happy to see Elena, and even allowed herself to be pulled into a hug. "Oh I've missed you!" Elena blathered. "Come here, you have to meet the Salvatores."

Elena grabbed Charlotte by the hand and dragged her over to where Damon and Stefan were standing on the porch. "Charlotte, this is my boyfriend Stefan. Stefan, this is my cousin Charlotte." Charlotte gave a small smile and shook Stefan's hand with a small "nice to meet you." Stefan, as his usual charming self answered, "It's great to finally meet you. Elena has been talking about you non-stop for the past few days." That brought a small smile to Charlotte's lips and a slight blush in her cheeks.

Suddenly, Damon's hatred for his brother flared, and he longed to pummel him right then and there. Elena turned Charlotte toward Damon and said, "This is Stefan's brother, Damon." Charlotte looked up at him from under her thick lashes, and her eyes seem to penetrate him to his core. She reached for his hand, and instinctually, he put it out to shake. The moment their hand's touched, Damon thought he felt a small thud right where his lifeless heart sat in his chest, a heart that had not beaten in over a hundred years. In that instant, for the first time since returning to Mystic Falls, all thoughts of Elena were banished from his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

Here is chapter 2! Sorry for making you all wait, I'm a college student with a hectic schedule, what do you expect? But I want to thank everyone for their great response to the story and for all the love I got. Just to let you guys know, my story will run pretty parallel to the show, but not exactly, so don't get mad if I change things here and there. Remember, please read and review. Pretty please? With sugar on top?-KMC

PS: I don't own the story, blah, blah, blah…

CHAPTER 2

After a moment, Damon came to his senses and released Charlotte's hand. His mind was muddled and disoriented, and he managed to mumble some polite nonsense to the girl before turning away. _What had she done to him_? He had never felt that way in his life, and for a moment, he swore his heart had given a small beat.

Damon looked back at the happy scene, as Elena put her hand on Charlotte's back and drew her inside, chattering mindlessly all the while. As she crossed the threshold, Charlotte turned and gave one last burning glance towards Damon, and then disappeared into the spacious house. After the others had left, Stefan turned to Damon and with an incredulous and slightly knowing look in his eyes asked, "What was that?" Damon looked up to see the condescending smirk on Stefan's face and sneered with disgust, "Nothing brother. Just pondering if Elena will notice if I take a bite out of her scrumptious little cousin." With that, Stefan's eyes flared and he answered, "Don't even try. Elena's welcome gift is a locket filled with Vervain. We knew she was vulnerable, and we are taking every precaution."

Damon thought, it's good that she is protected, she would be the first one harmed if the Originals should come looking….. No, no, no. No, he did not care what happened to the girl one bit, Damon told himself. His feeling of protectiveness towards the girl was instinctual, she looked so vulnerable, anyone would want to protect her. Except himself, of course.

In the back of his mind, Damon knew he was lying to himself, but those thoughts were easily silenced with a flip of his emotional switch.

"Well, Stefan, I would love to stay and chat, but all this new blood has made me thirsty, so if there is nothing else…" and with that Damon left Stefan standing on Elena's porch, staring after him agape. As Damon strolled aimlessly down the street, his mind unconsciously wandering back to those warm amber eyes…

* * *

"I promise I'm just jet-lagged. I'll be fine. Goodnight." Charlotte shut the door, and let out a huge sigh. She had missed her cousins, and they had done everything to make her feel welcome, but she just wanted to be alone. As she looked around the tidy, unfamiliar room, Charlotte wished she could be back at home, with her attic room that overlooked her backyard and the dense trees of the forest that surrounded the house.

She walked over to the bed and took in the unfamiliar surroundings. She had been many places before; an army brat has to learn how to adapt to sudden and radical changes moving from base to base, but she had never felt as lonely or out of place as she did now. As long as her mother was with her, she had her best friend and confidant wherever she went. And those frightening times when her father went into combat and she and her mother couldn't follow, Charlotte always felt safe with just the two of them in their little blue house with the broken fence and the faded brown door.

Thinking about her past with her mother made tears well up in her eyes. She missed her mother more than words could say, and now she had to face the fact that she could lose her father also. Charlotte felt as if the entire world had been destroyed, and she was the only one left; frightened, scared, and utterly alone.

Through her tears, without warning, the image of a perfectly chiseled jaw appeared, and then a proud nose, and two bottomless eyes that seemed to suck out her very soul…

Charlotte shook her head, trying to clear it. Damon. There was something different about Stefan's brother, a dark magnetism that chilled her as it excited her, and left her breathless from a simple handshake. Stefan was nice; an endless blue sky on a summer day, mysterious yet gentle and kind. Damon, on the other hand, made her blood curdle, and her mind screamed at her to fear him, that he was dangerous, an animal ready to eat her alive. But something about those haunted eyes, the eternal and ancient sadness and longing, well disguised to most but apparent enough to someone who had felt that same intense grief.

Charlotte knew something was different about the Salvatore brothers, though they looked young, she could sense an old sadness and pain about them, something from long ago, an eternal struggle that haunted them both. She also knew her new gift was more than it seemed; Elena and Jeremy were very adamant that she should wear the locket at all times. Like she was supposed to believe that this herb, Vervain, was supposed to protect her from forest ticks. They were hiding something from her, a terrible secret that connected them all. Charlotte knew that whatever was going on with Elena and the Salvatore's was serious, but as to what it was, only time would tell.

* * *

Later that same evening, Damon was pacing back and forth in the study of the old manor on the hill. He was trying to figure out a plan on how he and Stefan could prevent the Originals from finding Elena, but two golden eyes fringed in black lashes kept creeping into his thoughts.

Frustrated, Damon grabbed his cup of O-negative and threw it into the fireplace, where it shattered into a million pieces. Why wouldn't the girl just leave him alone? He was in enough pain as it was, why did she have to force her way into his mind and confuse his thoughts? As he thought of Charlotte, his anger grew. How _dare_ she? He just wanted piece; he wanted to find and kill the Originals, making Elena safe once and for all, and then leave this Godforsaken town and never look back. But this woman, this_ girl, _comes into the picture and everything else that seemed so clear before was now befuddled and murky.

Damon raced out the front door into the chilly night, the moon the casting a pearly glow on the mossy trees. He didn't know what he was going to do when he got there, but Damon's anger was fueling him towards Elena's house. Had he really examined his anger, Damon would have realized it was toward himself and his sadness, but his psyche was all too happy to accept an outside source to blame it on.

Damon could see the light on in the guest room Charlotte was staying in, and with no effort, climbed through the window into her room. He began to approach the bed, but stopped dead in his tracts when he saw her lying there. Still fully clothed, it looked like she had cried herself to sleep. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes puffy and red, but her face, even in slumber, showed a deep and profound sadness. Damon's anger sizzled out and died, and he simply looked at this girl, this girl who had turned his world upside down with a simple handshake and stare.

Without even thinking, Damon walked up to the girl and gently removed her shoes and carefully covered her with the checkered comforter. It was almost laughable, this situation. Damon could crush her skull with one hand, drain her body of blood before she could wake, and here he was tucking her in like a small child. She shifted slightly and released a small sigh, and one solitary tear slipped from the corner of her eye. Damon caught the pearly drop with his finger, and simply stared at it for a few moments. He looked down at the slumbering girl, and could not identify the feeling slowly taking root in the depths of his cold, dead heart.


End file.
